Tag: Samsung

Samsung released a mid-range Galaxy branded handset Gio nearly a couple of months ago. The handset sports a 3.2-inch screen with HVGA (320×480) resolution and is powered by an 800MHz processor.

The handset runs on Android 2.2 FroYo with TouchWIZ UI running on top of it. At the time of its launch, Samsung never mentioned anything about the Android 2.3 Gingerbread update for the handset.

However, at the middle of this month Samsung announced the Android 2.3 Gingerbread update for a bunch of Galaxy branded handsets. The Gio did feature in this list, but Sammy did not mention anything about the release date.

Now, the folks over at SamFirwmare.com have managed to get their hands on a leaked Android 2.3 Gingerbread firmware for the Galaxy Gio. The firmware has a build date of June 2, and is aimed for the European region. The leak suggests that Sammy is already working on the Gingerbread update for the Gio, and might as well release it within a month.

The firmware has no major bugs, and has been rooted by developers as well. The firmware’s default language is Russian, and users manually need to change it to their desired language.

T-Mobile has teamed up with Samsung to announce two new lower-mid range Android handsets the Exhibit 4G and the Gravity Smart.

The Exhibit 4G is powered by a 1GHz Hummingbird processor, and sports a 3.7-inch AMOLED screen with WVGA (800×480) resolution. The back of the phone packs a disappointing 3MP camera, while there is a VGA camera in the front for video calling. The handset also packs 512MB of RAM, along with the usual Wi-Fi, GPS with A-GPS, Bluetooth and a 3.5mm audio jack.

The Gravity Smart from Samsung is the first phone to be powered by the Android OS in the Gravity series. The handset sports a four-row QWERTY keyboard, and a 3.2-inch screen with HVGA (320×480) resolution. The handset will be powered by an 800MHz processor and packs 512MB of RAM. Like the Exhibit 4G, the Smart has a 3.2MP camera at its back.

The Exhibit 4G runs on Android 2.3 Gingerbread, while the Smart runs on the now old and stale Android 2.2 FroYo. The former will also be compatible with T-Mobile’s so called 4G’ network.

The Gravity Smart will cost users $70 after a mail-in rebate, while the Exhibit 4G will cost $80 after a $50 mail-in rebate. T-Mobile did not mention anything about the release date of both the handsets, but expect them to be available by the middle of this month.

Today, the price of the 8 GB variant of the Samsung Galaxy Player 5 was revealed through the Best Buy Mobile app.

The Galaxy Player 5 is priced at $269.99 for the 8 GB version. It is exactly identical to the original Galaxy S, except that it doesn’t support any calling features and doesn’t offer EDGE/3G. It also has a bigger 5 inch S-LCD display and comes with 2 cameras – a 3.2 MP primary camera and a VGA camera for video conferencing. It also has Bluetooth, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n.

It comes with Android 2.2 Froyo, but will be updated to Android 2.3 Gingerbread. It will also offer support for Android Market.

There is also the 4 inch version available – the Galaxy Player 4, which will likely be priced lower.

With the Galaxy Player, Samsung will compete directly with the iPod Touch. It will probably be available soon now.

Samsung Galaxy S is one of the largest selling Android smartphone. Samsung managed to sell more than 10 million units of the powerful Galaxy S. This handset originally runs on the Android 2.1 (Eclair) Operating System, but it was later updated to Android 2.2 (Froyo) OS. Samsung India already confirmed that, the Galaxy S will get the Android 2.3 Gingerbread update by the end of this month. And now, we have a good news for the Samsung Galaxy S owners in India.

Samsung has finally started rolling out the Android 2.3.3 update for the Galaxy S in India. Some of my friends have already started receiving this update for their Galaxy S smartphone. This update is numbered DDJV6 and it is currently available only via Samsung Kies. Sadly, this update is not available via OTA (Over-The-Air).

This update will upgrade the Samsung Galaxy S to Android 2.3.3 (Gingerbread) and it will bring a lot of improvements and bug fixes. Samsung is also expected to update its first tablet device, the Samsung Galaxy Tab to Android Gingerbread OS before the end of Q2 of 2011. On the other hand, Samsung Galaxy SL will receive the Android 2.3 update during the first or second week of July. Stay tuned for more updates.

At the beginning of this month, we reported that the Samsung Galaxy S II has already been ordered in excess of 3 million units by carriers all over the world. Sammy also managed to sell 120,000 units of the Galaxy S II in Korea in just 3 days.

Today, Samsung has announced that they have managed to ship more than 1 million units of the SGS II in a month of its public availability. The original Galaxy S took nearly 70 days to reach the same milestone.

This also makes the Samsung Galaxy S II the fastest selling phone in Korea, ever! One major reason behind this is that the handset was available at all major carriers right from its first week of launch.

The Samsung Galaxy S II has been getting ravishing reviews by reviewers all over the Internet, and is being dubbed as the best *smartphone*. I am pretty sure the handset is selling like hot cakes in other regions of the world, where it is already launched.

Looking at its popularity, the Samsung Galaxy S II is going to be one of the highest selling Android handset this year.

It will launch soon in many other countries, including India, and is expected to be the best selling smartphone of the year, at least until the iPhone 5 launches. Carrier specific versions of the Galaxy S 2 will be launched in the US this summer.

Today, J. K. Shin, President, Samsung Mobile, stated in an interview with WSJ, that Samsung was planning to launch a 4G version of the Galaxy Tab, after the launch of the Galaxy Tab 8.9 and 10.1.

He also said that Samsung will be launching the successor to the Galaxy S 2, the Galaxy S 3 in the first half of 2012. I suppose they will preview it either at CES or MWC 2012.

“Understanding that the market is changing very quickly and being able to embrace market trends quickly is one of Samsung’s biggest challenges in the mobile communications business. We believe that as time progresses, the tablet market will stabilize. There are a lot of players jumping into the market but it’s important to offer a device that customers can relate to and feel it’s a necessity in their daily lives” Mr. Shin said.

In my post about the Best Android Phones of 2011, the first two phones were the Samsung Galaxy S 2 and the HTC Sensation. While the Samsung Galaxy S 2 has been reviewed by many, the HTC Sensation is still relatively new. In the last few days though, some reviews of the HTC Sensation have been cropping up as well. The Galaxy S 2 has received awesome reviews so far, but the HTC Sensation also doesn’t seem to be far behind. It has also been recognized as an excellent device.

In this post, I will compare the HTC Sensation with the Samsung Galaxy S 2. Both the phones have similar hardware specifications and run Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread. Both of them have 8 MP cameras and come with a 4.3 inch display.

The Samsung Galaxy S 2 comes with a 4.3 inch SuperAMOLED Plus display which is probably the best mobile display ever, in terms of display quality, brightness, contrast etc. It has a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels.

The HTC Sensation has a 4.3 inch S-LCD display with a resolution of 540 x 960 pixels. It’s an excellent display, but relatively not as good as the SuperAMOLED Plus display of the Galaxy S 2. It does have a higher display resolution though, so it’s a tradeoff between resolution and the display quality.

User Interface

The Samsung Galaxy S 2 comes with Android 2.3 Gingerbread and the TouchWiz 4.0 interface, while the HTC Sensation comes with the same OS and the Sense 3.0 UI. While I personally prefer TouchWiz, I know many people who love the Sense UI, so this is very subjective.

Hardware

The Samsung Galaxy S 2 comes with a 1.2 GHz dual core Exynos processor and the very powerful Mali 400MP GPU. It has 1 GB RAM and comes with 16 GB internal storage.

The HTC Sensation comes with a 1.2 GHz dual core processor as well – the Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM 8260 – and the Adreno 220 GPU. It has 768 MB RAM and comes with 1 GB internal storage.

While both phones are almost equal in terms of processing and graphics, the Galaxy S 2 has more RAM and more internal storage. Most reviews also point that the Galaxy S 2 is marginally better in performance, and more responsive.

Camera

The Samsung Galaxy S 2 has an 8 MP camera with autofocus and LED flash, and a secondary 2 MP camera too. It offers brilliant image capture quality, and can also record 1080p videos at 30 FPS.

The HTC Sensation comes with an 8 MP camera too and it captures excellent images as well. It also has autofocus, dual LED flash with stereo sound recording, and can record 1080p videos at 30 FPS too.

You will have to wait for some time for a comprehensive camera comparison, but they are most likely equals in this case.

Connectivity

While both the devices offer all the basic connectivity options – EDGE, 3G HSDPA, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP and GPS with A-GPS, the Samsung Galaxy S 2 has one feature that the HTC Sensation doesn’t – NFC. With so many NFC based apps and services coming along, HTC shouldn’t have missed that one.

The Verdict

Both the Samsung Galaxy S 2 and the HTC Sensation are excellent smartphones. They are undoubtedly the best Android smartphones money can buy. The Samsung Galaxy S 2 will be launched in a couple of days (it has already been launched in some countries), while the HTC Sensation still has a couple of weeks to go.

I personally prefer the Samsung Galaxy S 2 – it is the best smartphone of all time – but even the HTC Sensation is a great device. Both the phones have received superb reviews, so it really boils down to two things:

1. Whether you can wait for the HTC Sensation, resisting the urge to buy the Galaxy S 2 when it launches.

As part of Apple’s lawsuit, Samsung was ordered to hand over pre-production samples of the Samsung Infuse 4G, Galaxy S 2, Droid Charge, Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the Galaxy Tab 8.9 over to Apple, so that Apple could decide if those products were also a part of the lawsuit and seek an injunction against their release.

On Friday, Samsung filed a motion asking Apple to turn over final samples of the iPhone 5 and the iPad 2, along with the retail packaging. It claims that it needs to examine those devices in order to check for any similarities with the Galaxy S 2 or the Galaxy Tab 10.1, so that it can prepare for any potential legal action by Apple.

The problem is, while most of the Samsung products have either launched or have been revealed, Apple’s iPhone 5 and iPad 3 are strictly under wraps. It’s highly improbable that Apple will agree to the request, but it’s a very bold move by Samsung. This lawsuit is definitely getting interesting.

HTC’s smartphone sales and profits have risen up sharply, with the growth of Android. Last year, HTC Android phones were among the most popular ones among the consumers as well as developers. Developers used to buy a HTC based Android phones, since it was easy to get root access and flash custom ROMs on their phones.

However, since the beginning of this year HTC changed their agenda and started shipping Android phones with encrypted boot loader. This meant that rooting and flashing custom ROMs on HTC phones became nearly impossible. The company received a lot criticism on their move of encrypting the boot loaders on their handset.

Many people who had previously thought of buying the HTC Sensation went ahead and got the Samsung Galaxy S II, just because the SGS II does not have a locked down boot loader.

A few days ago HTC said that they are reviewing their policy on locked down boot loaders. Today, HTC’s CEO Peter Chou announced that HTC has listened to its customer feedback, and they will no longer be locking down boot loaders on their devices.

This definitely is music to my ears, and as well as every developer out there. This move from HTC clearly proves that ignoring the developer community can lead to negative PR and lot of criticism (Psst Motorola).

However, HTC has not mentioned anything whether their current devices with locked boot loaders like the Sensation, Incredible S will be unlocked or not.

First Sony Ericsson, then Samsung and LG and now HTC all have realized that they are adversely going to affect the sales of their handsets by locking down its boot loader. Now, only if Motorola could realize this!

Samsung finally launched the much-awaited Samsung Galaxy S II at an event in New Delhi. This handset is the successor of the highly popular Samsung Galaxy S smartphone. The powerful Galaxy S II runs on the Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) Operating System and comes with a 1.2 Ghz dual-core application processor, 8 megapixel camera with full HD (1080p) video recording and more.

This handset features a new Live Panel service that aggregates live web and application contents to a single customizable home-screen. Samsung Galaxy S II comes with the WiFi Direct technology, which allows consumers to connect to wireless-enabled PCs and printers without the need for wireless access points.

Samsung Galaxy S II will be exclusively available at Vodafone Stores from June 3 and at other retail stores from June 9. This handset comes with a price tag of Rs.32,890. Vodafone also offers 1 GB of 2G/3G data for the first 6 months, with the purchase of this smartphone. Are you planning to buy this amazing smartphone? Let us know your views in the comments below.